Morbi Bridge Collapse: Two Brothers Lost a Son Each, One Was to Join Home Guard

Brothers Ganpat and Mansukh Rathod lost their sons in the Morbi bridge collapse tragedy on 30 October.

Ganpat Kanji Rathod, a 54-year-old construction labourer had built his own house last month in Gujarat's Morbi just in time for Diwali, using the funds he got under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana scheme.

Ganpat's son, 20-year-old Vijay, was selected to join the Home Guard just a few days back. "He also has the uniform, the cap, and the badges, do you want to see?" said Ganpat as he went inside the house to get it.

Things looked upward for Ganpat's family until an unprecedented tragedy befell them.

Vijay was one of the 135 people who died in the cable bridge that collapsed over the Machchhu river in Morbi on the evening of 30 October. Along with Vijay, his cousin Jagdish, the son of Ganpat's brother Mansukh, also lost his life in the tragedy. Jagdish was a salesman at a garment shop.

As Ganpat came out of the house with Vijay's Home Guard cap and badges, his wife Kusumben who was surrounded with several other women inside the small house, began to cry.

"He wanted to join the Home Guard so that his siblings can study better," Ganpat said.

Vijay and Jagdish, both went to the bridge on Sunday as both had a day off. Ganpat said that the two, who were born just two months apart from each other, practically grew up together and did everything together till date. They were accompanied by two more friends, Dhaval and Sandeep, who also lost their lives in the tragedy. All four of them were cremated together on Monday morning.

'Jumped into the River Last Night to Search for Him'

Recalling the ordeal of the family's search for the two boys last night, Ganpat said that they had no idea till one one of his neighbours told them about the collapse.

"We started looking for them around 7:00 pm. I jumped into the water to look for him myself but there it was too dark. There were policemen, there were ambulances, there was too much traffic and chaos," Ganpat recalled.

Ganpat and Mansukh then started searching for their children by showing their pictures to people and rescue workers, and gave them their number.

"Both their phones were switched off. We also gave their pictures to the media personnel that were there," Mansukh said

"I went to the civil hospital from the riverbank thrice last evening, but failed to locate our children. We eventually found one of them at the hospital at 11:00 pm, and the other at 12:00 am," Ganpat said.

Mansukh further said that they tragedy upon the family is so shocking, that they have not had the time to process who is responsible for the tragedy.

At Least 50 Children Among the Dead

Among the 140 that are being reported dead, at least 53 are children or below the age of 18. Authorities on the ground told The Quint that the reason so many children have died because many of them could not hold on to the ropes after the bridge snapped.

The bridge, that was undergoing renovation for seven months, was reopened just last week on the Gujarati New Year, which is a day after Diwali. While the authorities have blamed the Oreva company which was responsible for the renovation for having opened the bridge without obtaining a fitness certificate, many have raised questions as to how the private company could take such a step without the municipal corporation's knowledge.

At least nine people have been arrested in the case filed by the Morbi police, including managers of Oreva and ticket clerks, Ashok Yadav, IG, Rajkot range, told the media earlier.

Several Opposition leaders, including the Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, have demanded a judicial probe into the matter. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already announced ex-gratia and compensation fro the victims, he will also be visiting Morbi on Tuesday.